Brad Thor: The Apostle

He took the tactics from his enemies that worked and turned those tactics right back on them. He had also invented several of his own along the way. Harvath took no pleasure in the killing he was required to do for his country, but he understood that to keep America from harm, violent men often had to be met with violence. The men Harvath killed were beyond diplomacy; beyond being reasoned with. Violence was the only language they understood.

President Robert Alden, though, was of a different mind. The winds of change had blown him into office and because of that he believed he had been given a mandate. The hawks had flown high above the American political landscape for eight years; now the doves had taken flight. The American people had spoken. That was democracy and Harvath both understood and respected it, but America wouldn’t make its enemies disappear just by putting someone new in the Oval Office. The republic would always need its sheepdogs, no matter which way the political winds blew.

Maybe Alden would get lucky and actually bring about true reform in the American intelligence community, but if what he had done so far was any indication of what was to come, things were not going to get any better any time soon.

Bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere were too risk-averse and too concerned with getting promoted to focus on beating America’s enemies. The men and women in the field were not getting the resources they needed, nor were they getting even halfway decent management or leadership. The nation spent billions of dollars to find solutions to intelligence problems that shouldn’t even exist. Americans slept soundly in their beds at night believing their country had countless James Bonds around the world infiltrating terrorist networks and rogue regimes in order to keep them safe and prevent the next attack. If they only knew the real truth, they’d be marching on D.C. with torches and pitchforks. How nineteen goatherds could do what they did on 9/11 to the most powerful nation on the face of the earth was still beyond Harvath. What puzzled him more was that heads had not rolled at the CIA over the attacks.

Accountability, as well as personal responsibility, had been chucked out the window of American government. It also had been abdicated by the American voter. As long as most Americans could have their McDonald’s drive-throughs, listen to their iPods, and watch American Idol, they didn’t seem to care how negligently the nation’s national security apparatus was being run.

Bread and circuses. The Romans had it right. As long as people had food and fun, they didn’t care much about the erosion of their nation.

That said, a small and growing number of Americans did care, and as their voices grew, Harvath hoped they would attract more attention to themselves and more attention to what needed to be done. Time was running out for the ineffective “business as usual” system in Washington. One day soon, the American citizenry was going to wake up. Harvath only hoped it wouldn’t take another catastrophic attack to make that happen.

For his part, Harvath was glad to have cast off the bureaucratic shackles of Washington. As of June 1, he would start a new position in the private sector with a private intelligence-gathering company. Not only would he continue to use his full skill set in the service of his country, he’d also be increasing his income several times over. It looked like the perfect win-win situation, and no matter what Harvath did, he was always about winning.

He hit the seven-mile mark on his run and clicked the button on his Kobold chronograph to halt the stopwatch. He slowed to a walk and used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. When he looked down at his dog, he noticed something was wrong. The hair on Bullet’s back was standing straight up.

They were deep in moose territory and there was always the possibility of an encounter with a black bear or a bobcat, but they tended to shy away from humans, unless they had young with them and you got too close.

Harvath stopped walking and tried to discern what was bothering Bullet. As he did, the dog began growling. They were less than fifty yards from where Harvath had left his SUV, and that was the direction Bullet’s attention seemed drawn to.

Something told him he’d better get control of his dog, but when he reached for his collar, Bullet took off.

Harvath yelled for him to stop, but the dog kept going. For a fraction of a second, Harvath stood transfixed. It was like watching a lion charge across the savanna.

The beauty of the moment was short-lived. The dog was likely headed for danger, and Harvath took off after him.

He soon disappeared into the trees near where Harvath had parked his truck and began barking. It wasn’t his normal bark, and Harvath was now certain that something was very wrong.

Running at a full-out sprint, he came around a stand of trees and noticed the front door of his Trailblazer was wide open, and parked right behind the SUV, blocking it in, with its engine still running, was a blacked-out Chevy Tahoe.

Bullet stood on his hind legs with his huge front paws pressed against the Tahoe’s driver’s-side window. He was barking even louder and more angrily than before, his long, sharp teeth gnashing together.

Harvath drew the Taurus TCP.380 he jogged with and approached the Tahoe. As he got closer, he saw that it had government plates. He didn’t know what it was doing here, but he didn’t like it.

Leaving Bullet to distract whoever was inside, Harvath kept his gun out of sight and approached the passenger-side window. Sitting in front were two men of medium build with short hair and dark suits. They looked like Feds, Secret Service or maybe FBI, but that still didn’t explain what they were doing in the middle of nowhere parked behind his SUV and why one of his doors had been opened.

Harvath had always lived by the maxim have a smile for everyone you meet and a plan to kill them. It was what had kept him alive in his particularly dangerous line of work. The key was in striking the right balance between healthy suspicion and crippling paranoia; not an easy feat with the number of enemies Harvath had made over the years. Part of the appeal of Maine had been that nobody knew him here and he could relax. It was a plan that had been working right up until just a few moments ago.

Tightening his grip on his weapon, Harvath tapped the glass with his free hand and caught the men inside by surprise.

The suit in the passenger seat lowered his window, but only partway. “Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed. “Is that your dog?”

“And my truck,” replied Harvath, nodding toward the SUV the men had blocked in.

“You want to call him off?”

After scanning the inside of the Tahoe, Harvath whistled. Bullet growled for a few seconds, then leaped down and came around to Harvath’s side of the Tahoe.

“What’s your name?” demanded the passenger.

Harvath didn’t like the man’s attitude. “William Howard Taft,” he replied. “What’s yours?”

Cutting off his less-than-affable partner, the driver answered, “I’m Benson. He’s Wagner. We’re United States Secret Service.”

As if they had rehearsed this a million times, both men reached into their jackets in unison, ostensibly to remove their credentials.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Harvath. “Let’s take it easy. Nobody needs to be in a hurry.”

Benson motioned for Wagner to relax, and, using his left hand, he pulled back the left side of his suit jacket to show Harvath what he was doing. Slowly he slid his thumb and forefinger into his inside pocket and retrieved his credentials. He then opened his ID wallet and extended his arm toward Harvath. “We’re from the Portland office.”

“What were you doing in my truck?”